


And In Blood and Worse

by FrostbitePanda



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Podfic Welcome, Post-Movie(s), Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 16:12:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4144179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrostbitePanda/pseuds/FrostbitePanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He returns one cool night, 150 days after he had left her last, burdened with scavenged guzzoline and pilfered guns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And In Blood and Worse

It starts with vomiting, until she cannot possibly wretch anything else from her belly.

She is shaking visibly and The Dag and Cheedo are watching her with apprehension, question burning in their faces. "I thought you were..."

"I was," she grits out, wiping her mouth with her wrist. "Not anymore."

+++

To their credit, the Sisters asked her little of her new development. And only fussed when she was sick or sore, which seemed to be growing lesser of late. One of the Vuvalini makes her healing teas and tells her what to do and what not to do.

"Does he know?" She asks her during one of their usually silent meetings. Her abdomen is swollen now, and she strokes it absently.

"Not yet."

The woman nods and returns to her work.

+++

He returns one cool night, 150 days after he had left her last, burdened with scavenged guzzoline and pilfered guns.

He finds her atop her favorite watch tower, the moon girding him in silver. She notes that he has shed his jacket, probably going to her room, their room, and coming to where he knew he could find her.

"Hey," she breathes to him as she turns around and tries not to show him she's shaking.

His eyes, thirsty for her, drink her in and he knows.

His face collapses into wretched guilt and sharp fear. She thinks she also sees something akin to wonder, awe.

"Max..." She trails off lamely. What is she supposed to say?

He's shaking his head, looking at her for reassurance, guidance, anything. His body is impossibly tense, hands gripping and slacking in a frenetic way, as if looking for something to hold onto. Something simple and not so dangerous. For a moment, she considers the possibility that he will simply leave, never to return.

She feels hopeless and her hands go to her belly. She closes her eyes and turns away from him.

"Don't."

The sound isn't a word, it is a branch snapping underfoot. She turns to him again, eyes flying open in shock. He has shuffled closer, but still so far away.

He is still shaking his head. His throat working hard. He clutches the hem of her linen shift and rubs the fabric between his fingers. "Didn't know..." His eyes are bright and wild and she knows he is blinking away his ghosts. His chest hitches. "Never've left."

His guilt is palpable. A humid weight between them. She reaches for the hand worrying at her hem, curling her finger around his knuckles.

"It's not your fault," She reassures him. He looks at her, placated only slightly. It is immutably his fault. His charge. His child.

He's humming, head still going from side to side. His eyes are roving over her, incredulous. He slowly brings his other hand up to cup her cheek, brush over her neck, the touch probing more than tender, as if testing her reality. He then brings it down to her thigh, moving upwards until her shift is pushed up over her stomach. His face is unreadable. He gently pushes his hand upon it, callous rasping over silk. He breathes in sharply. "Are you... Is everything?"

"Fine," she responds to his unasked question. He would of course not think of anything else until it was known that she was well.

His shoulders fall, tension leaving him for a time. "I'm so sorry," He rumbles and for a moment she is brought back to the back of a pursuit vehicle, motor oil in her lungs, and a fire in her side. Her lips twitch up in a small smile.

"Don't," She mumbles, echoing his command earlier.

The lost, helpless look he had been manifesting since he had seen her is gone. It is all dark determination and a familiar light of something she dared never name whenever he saw her for the first time after leaving the road. He pulls her too him, the motion tempered with care. "Furiosa," He growls like a proclamation. A brand of divine and impossible things.

+++

He cannot stay for the birth.

He has been her shadow the past months. He rubs her feet and cradles her head at night. He fetches her water and wipes the grime of the day from her body in the baths. He listens as others discuss what is to be done that day at the Citadel with her, always jumping at the chance to relieve her of work in the machine bays or the fields.

He built her a bed for the child. A drum, cut in half, sharp edges ground down carefully. It is stuffed with dry straw, loose batting, and lined with the finest blanket he could find. When he hefts it into their room, he places it wordlessly at the foot of the bed and gives her a small smile, arms outstretched in presentation. She almost cries with laughter and happiness.

But he cannot be there for the birth.

She is surrounded by her Sisters, the Vuvalini midwife crowing about being out of practice. She silently thanks whoever is listening that he is not here. The joke would not land correctly with Max.

"Can't..." He says to her one night as she folds herself in the bed. He has taken to sleeping on the ground next to it, knowing she has to rest and needs all the room she can get. She doesn't agree with this arrangement, but convincing him otherwise had proved fruitless. "I can't see you..."

"I know," And she really does. Seeing her in blood and pain, because of him, would be more than he could withstand.

She tells Capable to stay with him while it happens. And as the babe, a girl, is pushed squirming and screaming into her arms, she orders anyone who can to find him.

+++

He swims into her bleary vision, sitting among moonlight on the floor. He is holding the child in his arms, humming tunelessly to her, stroking her sandy hair, pinching her hands gently in his fingers. She is left breathless and hot at the sight, eyes burning.

"Hey," He says, without looking over to her.

His eyes meet hers, eventually, brilliant with a hue she's never seen before. His mouth works into the smallest of smiles, sweet and tender. "Hey."

"She looks like you," She says as she pulls herself up onto the pillows the Sisters had donated to her.

"Mmm," He rises easily to his feet, carefully balancing his burden. The bed shifts with his weight. "She has your nose."

The babe gurgles in her sleep, reaching for him. "Shhh," He hums quietly, bringing her closer to his chest. He turns to her, "What do we... Ah... What do we call her?"

She shakes her head slowly, like in a dream. And really, this must be a dream. The Citadel once had a practice of not naming babies until they reached a year old. Most of them died before then. But that wouldn't happen to this child, born of Max the Mad and the First Mother, Furiosa, as they had come to be called. "Something from the old world."

He ducks his head, the meaning not lost on him. His name was of the old world. She watches as he continues his ministrations. Images, dimly lit, race before her. Him teaching her to swim, both of them watching as she lopes through the fields, mud-streaked and wild.

She still can't bring herself to believe that this is her reality.

She feels his hand, warm and large on her skull, as he brings her mouth to his.

+++

_With the loneliness_   
_Of you mighty men_   
_With your mighty kiss_   
_That might never end_   
_While so far away_   
_In the seat of the west_   
_Burns the fount_   
_Of the heat_   
_Of that loneliness_

_\- Go Long, Joanna_ Newsom

**Author's Note:**

> I think that is the closest to crack!fic I'll ever write. Thanks Joanna Newsom.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
